Mallory Ortberg Quotes
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Humor is always more interesting when it comes from someone who's had more than, like, five experiences.
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There's no specific mission statement for the 'Toast.'
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A lot of my creative energy is spent coming up with a concept that, once I get it, I feel like it writes itself.
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I love reading religious authors. Especially in the sort of circle I move in, people tend to be more secular, and I love reading books by just really smart people of religious faith. It's always a really cool perspective.
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Eighty per cent of my output is 'Mallory clowns on the Western canon,' and I'm happy to be that person.
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I graduated with an English degree and worked for awhile in academic publishing.
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Ghost! I miss him! Is that weird? I miss him even though I invented him. I feel a lot of tenderness toward him. I don't write a lot of stuff that is sad or that is tender and affectionate, so that has a very special place in my heart.
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We went to church twice a week. My parents were employed in ministry; we prayed before dinner. We rollerbladed in the summer. We were allowed to watch the 'Simpsons.' I fought with my younger brother over Legos.
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It's an unfortunate reality of life that toxins are constantly building up in our bodies.
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With a few exceptions, birds are not to be trusted; it is not normal to have such soft, vulnerable bodies bookended with slashing beaks and razor-sharp claws. It is as unnatural as an armed marshmallow.
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The Toast's audience is about 30-35 percent male, which shocked me because I would say that we actively try to discourage men from reading our site. Apparently, there's not insignificant number of dudes out there who think that what we are doing is okay.
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Weirdly, often the more I write, the more ideas I have.
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Usually, the first thing I do when I wake up is I start working, so I often won't start the day by reading anything because I like to minimize my 'commute' as much as possible. I wake up, open my laptop and start working in bed.
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Did you know that, pound for pound, the moose is the leanest ruminant on Earth? It's true. Moose are very in tune with their natural surroundings.
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One of the things that would be great is to some day have so many women comedy writers that we wouldn't say there's just one type of female humor. There's lots.
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I read my first P.G. Wodehouse when I was 12.
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The most successful Subway customers, of course, are the ones who can't keep their hands off their sandwich. Join your artist in the sandwich assembling process. That sneeze guard is a suggestion. That sneeze guard is trying to intimidate you into staying on the customer's side of the partition.
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Usually my writing is very over the top and bombastic and very, like, 'I'm amazing! Look at me!'
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I grew up in a home where reading was a big deal.
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Anything where I get to write a lot of jokes and have a lot of creative control - that's all I want.
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I have a lot of faith in the power of joking to make something thoughtful.
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In the hands of a passive-aggressive person who wants to abdicate responsibility for things, texting is a great tool. You can really go nuts.
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I think female solitude is a mental condition as well as a physical state. You can be married and a spinster. I think spinster is an identity every woman can claim, if she will... I feel like a lot of women, or a lot of feminists, joke about taking to the sea or living alone in a cottage as this kind of fun freedom.
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I'm really not a journalist, and I don't do a ton of newsy pieces. Occasionally I'll write about something that's going on recently, but I really don't do a ton of stuff that's tied to current events.